Hmmm I keep thinking about this every time it's brought up and I have always been of the mindset that stuff like this really doesn't bother me. I have nothing to hide and I want to fly on a plane sans any explosive material. I'm okay with it.

On the morning of 27 December 1985, we were at the TWA check-in at Leonardo DaVinci airport to find out if the plane we were waiting for had been delayed, which it had been. We were in the bathroom when we heard an explosion, then gun fire. I was on my way out of the bathroom, so I turned around and went back in.

Four men, later identified as terrorists from Abu Nidal, had opened fire with AK-47's and thrown grenades at the lines waiting to check in at El Al & TWA. There was a shoot out that seemed to take forever between the terrorists & the police.

When the Caribinieri came in to get people out of the bathroom, we had to step over pools of blood and around bodies to leave the area.

Despite that experience, I still feel feel that the TSA's new "Goggle or Grope" policy is overkill as well as a health hazard to the flying public. I've been exposed to enough radiation in the last year, I don't need another dose and I'll be damned if I am going to let some unknown person assault me just so I can get on a plane. Ditto for my kids.

I think the TSA and Border Patrol need to switch places. Let the professional Border Patrol agents who have been taught how to profile people man the security points in airports and have the TSA continue their “grope & goggle” at the borders of this country. (If you have arrived via airplane from an international destination, you have already passed through security, so there is no need to go through it again.)

Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men ~ General George S. Patton, Jr.

She taking all the stars down from her sky to hang them up someplace new, where there's better weather and the sky's a different blue. ~ Autumn Fields

I agree with Noel that it's overkill. When is it going to stop? Terrorists are going to start hiding things in body cavities, and then what? Mandatory body cavity searches for all passengers? I don't like the full-body scanners. Call me paranoid, but I would be hard-pressed to believe the TSA when they say those images can't be recorded anywhere. Do they do the "enhanced pat downs" on the TSA workers in the room to make sure they don't have cell phones? And don't get me started on the pat downs. Last Christmas, flying both to and from NM, I was "randomly chosen" for a pat down (not "enhanced," fortunately) even though I cleared the metal detectors. Their reasoning? I had on a baggy sweatshirt.

I just feel that terrorists are laughing at us right now - the United States is terrorizing it's own citizens.

"Remember - every time your dog gets somewhere on a tight leash *a fairy dies and it's all your fault.* Think of the fairies." http://www.positivepetzine.com"

airwalk wrote:["A nation that trades it's freedom for safety, shall have neither". No one can guarantee my safety...no one. But they surely can guarantee my lack of freedom.

That is actually one of my favorite quotes and so completely relevant.

In my opinion, it's as ridiculous as the government trying to tell me what breed of dog I can own.

I wish that it had been written into the constitution that Congress can't exempt themselves from any laws, since they are of course exempt from this (as are pilots, but flight attendants are not). God knows that will never happen now.

And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions. ~Samuel Adams

I found this article to be a very interesting read. I have to go research it myself, as I take everything on the internet with a grain of salt. But neverless, it is food for thought.

I think they have finally come up with a plan to put the airlines out of business. The only folks who will fly are the ones that have no choice. I don't think this is the end, it is just another leap toward the end of what they will subject the general public to.

It is time for the citizens to wake up and consider that a certain amount of profiling is a good thing. That is why professional profilers exist. They are able to portray a suspect with enough clarity that their habits or behaviors are suspect.

If we are going to go to extremes - I would prefer that we do as we try to do with dogs, ban specific nationalities.

And please, no one start a hoo-ha over this, just trying to make a point.

Part of my disgust with this is that the TSA keeps saying "well we've already confiscated so many knives and things!" Well, knives and other weapons show up on regular metal detectors. If they'd found something truly worthy it would have been all over the news.

And another part of my disgust - regular citizens have been the ones preventing recent terrorist attempts. People are no longer going to sit quietly on a plane and let it be taken hostage. We're standing up for our own safety. I don't trust the TSA to keep me safe any more than I trust the media to give an accurate portrayal of anything.

"Remember - every time your dog gets somewhere on a tight leash *a fairy dies and it's all your fault.* Think of the fairies." http://www.positivepetzine.com"

Last year, my father flew to and from a business meeting. When he got home he dumped his carry on out on his bed and found a utility knife in with his stuff, he had run it through the scanners twice and no one saw it.

The whole thing is BS, as usual. Those scans run through a computer, and anyone who thinks they are not recorded is delusional. The first time they find something major, that scan will be all over the press as "justification" for the scans... and then they will back pedal on how the "scanners that can't record images" managed to do so just that one time. And when someone does get through and causes a problem, they will want to go back to that person's scan and see how they missed it.

As with everything in this country, it's overkill and I think is directly related to liability. If they are invasive and go to far, then when something is missed they can say "see, all of you complained about the scans and they weren't enough!" It's right up there with the "terror alert" levels, such a crock... The people who are involved with real issues aren't looking at that stupid color system, they are already half way around the world dealing with it.

I think it is beyond overkill! I would rather keep my freedom to travel without being groped and scanned. The things they are trying to find can either be found with a regular metal detector or cant be picked up on the "enhanced" scanner. Martha Stewart Bone Folder anyone?

Not only am I a member of the Michelle says my dog is fat club I'm the president!I can Alpha Roll hair!